Trough Feeder

[Deerhead]

I am thinking about building a trough feeder with some type of feed hopper. What does everyone think about trough feeders? I have owned mechanical feeds but they break.

 

[shdw633]

I like them, they are ok but if the protein pellets stay very long in them and they get rained on it's bad. I am going to try and build a feed hopper in mine as well to prevent this. Have you thought about installing gravity feeder tubes on your mechanical feeders as well? I have several of those and have had good success with them as well.

 

[Deerhead]

That's what I had and it broke only after four months.

 

[shdw633]

That's what I had and it broke only after four months.

I have never had that happen. I took off the mechanical devices and installed the metal gravity tubes that Walmart was selling at the time, now I think Academy Sports has one that is similar. I did have to make an adapter out of plywood so it would fit my Moultrie feeders but after I was done I have three that have been going strong for over 5 years now and are still in the woods. I like them over the troughs only because they are easier to move. That being said my troughs are way easier to fill and that's why I use them in my more permanent locations. I did buy a plate feeder from Moultrie this year and it's working out so far but it's too soon for me to say that it's great because I don't think it really has had a lot of feeding pressure on it. I plan on moving it to a more productive area to see if the plate will hold up under several mouths feeding from it over time.

 

[crasm1]

We have been running feeders since it was legal in the southern zone. We have found that troughs are the best all around feeder. Especially with protein. first the obvious, you must put a large enough roof over trough so rain does not get in. We had two gravity bin feeders into a trough and the up and down SOWEGA temps and humidity really messed up the protien eventually shutting it down. If you have hogs they will get the feed in the trough no matter what unless you put up paneling. We had our troughs at 42 inches at the lip and the hogs still got it.

Our troughs now are all hog paneled and in season we use corn and sprinkle at least a bag on the ground and the buck visits tripled during season. if you have any more questions let me know